Sources: Meta offered $450M in late March to settle the FTC's antitrust case and raised its offer to ~$1B as the trial neared; the FTC had demanded $30B

The FTC wanted $30 billion to drop its case. Zuckerberg offered much less and hoped Trump would back him up.

Wall Street Journal 2025-04-16

Context & Ripple Effects

Meta had already been reported to be seeking a political route around the scheduled case, including Zuckerberg's White House lobbying for a settlement. The newly reported negotiating range puts a concrete scale on how far apart Meta and the FTC remained.

The dispute was also framed as an early test for the Trump FTC and Chair Andrew Ferguson. That makes the parties' inability to converge consequential beyond Meta: it tests whether enforcement can be resolved through negotiated remedies rather than litigated to judgment.

First-order effects

Meta's increased offer signals a willingness to pay materially more to avoid the case, while the FTC's much higher demand preserves a large bargaining gap as proceedings approach.
The reported gap gives the FTC a clearer choice between accepting a negotiated exit at a far lower figure or continuing to press its antitrust claims; Meta remains exposed to the cost and uncertainty of that decision.

Second-order effects

A settlement, if reached, would become a closely watched reference point for how the Trump-era FTC values resolution of major platform cases; failure to settle would instead keep the agency's litigation strategy under scrutiny.
Meta's engagement with both the FTC and the White House reinforces that its legal strategy is being pursued alongside political outreach, not solely through the court process.

Third-order effects

The episode points to a broader contest over whether Big Tech antitrust enforcement is set primarily by court-tested theories or by high-stakes negotiated settlements shaped by agency leadership and political context.
If wide settlement gaps persist in major platform cases, companies and regulators may increasingly use litigation deadlines as leverage while facing greater uncertainty over what enforcement outcomes will look like.

The trend: Major platform antitrust disputes are becoming tests of how aggressively a changing enforcement regime will litigate versus settle, and on what terms.

Discussion

Newsmax Mark Swanson on x
WSJ: Zuckerberg Offered $1B to Settle Antitrust Case
@mims Christopher Mims on bluesky
Zuckerberg did everything he could to personally lobby Trump to avoid the FTC trial or settlement, thought this would make it go away: — $25 million payment — $1 million to inauguration — 2 trips to Mar a Lago — dialed back content moderation — ...and it didn't work. …
@edzitron.com Ed Zitron on bluesky
Meta actually might lose this lol [embedded post]
@wongmjane Jane Manchun Wong on threads
> the failure to reach a deal pretrial suggests he isn't getting much return on his investment 🫢
@admcrlsn Adam Carlson on x
In a shocking twist, that sudden 180° that Zuckerberg did saying “the workplace needs more masculine energy” on Rogan back in early January was 100% fake. [image]
@admcrlsn Adam Carlson on x
And here is the crux of it. The MAGA wing of the party blames Meta and Zuckerberg for Trump's loss in 2020, and they are trying to defang them in 2028 and beyond. [image]
@admcrlsn Adam Carlson on x
Wild story in the WSJ. It's paywalled so I'll screenshot some key excerpts below. But basically it's about how Mark Zuckerberg spent millions trying to suck up to Trump so Meta only had to pay $450M (instead of $30B that the FTC wanted) to settle an antitrust case against them. […
@imkialikethecar Kia K. on x
“How about we pay you.... 1 Instagram?”
@nicholashirst_ Nicholas Hirst on x
“Meta had opened with an offer to make changes to some of its policies. The FTC countered with $30 billion” to settle antitrust charges. Great reporting from the WSJ https://www.wsj.com/...
@admcrlsn Adam Carlson on x
We really didn't deserve Lina [image]
@jason_kint Jason Kint on x
Wild also in the context of he also spent $19B (11% of Facebook market cap) to acquire WhatsApp despite almost zero revenues in order to keep it from competing in social media against Facebook.
@terrencemcd Terrence T. McDonald on x
lol The FTC wanted $30 billion to drop its case against Meta. Mark Zuckerberg offered much less and hoped Trump would back him up. https://www.wsj.com/... via @WSJ
@pkafka Peter Kafka on x
Why wouldn't Zuck go to $5b, which is what he paid to settle Cambridge Analytica ?
@zamaan_qureshi Zamaan Qureshi on x
Fire quote from Chair Lina Khan: “His [Zuckerberg's] proposed remedy, like his market strategy, is: ‘let my illegal monopoly keep monopolizing.’”
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
On second thought, I'm not sure I believe this story. Why wouldn't Zuckerberg pay? This would be less than half their annual profit, and it would make an existential threat go away.
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
I wonder why this story leaked. Letting Meta off with a fine, even a large one, is exactly the kind of weak European-style antitrust that subverts the rule of law. https://www.wsj.com/...
@stevekovach Steve Kovach on bluesky
Reminds me of when the FTC tried (and failed) to argue the Nintendo Switch didn't compete with Xbox and PlayStation when it tried (and failed) to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision.
@stevekovach Steve Kovach on bluesky
I still don't understand how the government can argue TikTok is NOT a Meta competitor. [embedded post]
@gateklons @gateklons on bluesky
“At one point [Zuckerberg] ordered executives to put more ads on Instagram so that Facebook was not carrying so much of the business load. He also stopped doing some in-app promotions for Instagram on Facebook to stop sending user traffic from the company's core social network t…
@kurtwagner Kurt Wagner on bluesky
This was shortly after he also ordered IG to increase its “ad load” — meaning show people more ads — as a way to make more money and take some pressure off Facebook — Perhaps not surprisingly, IG's founders left the company a few months after all of this happened in September 2…
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on bluesky
But it is crazy to see stuff I had from various sources get confirmed by internal documents/emails. Also!! This is new to me, and not in my book: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on bluesky
Just saying, if you read No Filter, you would have known about Zuckerberg getting jealous of Instagram's growth (& why the founders left) long before this FTC trial
@mike_isaac Mike Isaac on threads
fav email of FTC vs Meta so far — sheryl sandberg asking Mark Zuckerberg how to play settlers of catan in between a discussion about buying instagram
@kurtwag8 Kurt Wagner on threads
New/Fun: Mark Zuckerberg considered spinning off Instagram into its own standalone company in 2018 A major reason: he felt Instagram was harming the Facebook social network, and spinning off IG would let them both grow without having to try and strategically work together in the …
@alexeheath Alex Heath on x
well, that's awkward! during the FTC v. Meta trial today, the gov showed a 2018 email in which Zuckerberg himself suggested spinning off Instagram into a “separate company” “while most companies resist break-ups, the corporate history is that most companies actually perform bett…
@oliversegovia Oliver Segovia on x
😂! I actually remember this idea going around the grapevine within the company in 2018-19, and I'm sure it was discussed earlier than that within M team when it was clear by 2014-15 that IG was a huge win. I do think it was partially the cause of a wave of employees who missed …
@meghanbobrowsky Meghan Bobrowsky on x
Something to keep in mind re the Meta FTC trial: Meta is trying to ramp up spending on AI infrastructure and plans to spend $65 billion this year. Losing Instagram would not only be a blow to Meta's revenue but would also likely prohibit Meta from spending more on AI.
@bbenedict33 Brendan Benedict on x
Wow - current email with Zuckerberg in #ftcvmeta trial shows that FB considered spinning off Instagram. Zuckerberg predicts “we may face antitrust regulation requiring us to spin out our other apps anyway.” Email is from 2018!
@bbenedict33 Brendan Benedict on x
The hits are really coming now. These are emails I haven't seen before. Zuckerberg in 2018 email to Mosseri, Head of IG: “I agree with you that Instagram will always need to focus on friends and can never exclusively be for public figures or will cease to be a social product.”
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
Matheson asks if Facebook shut down investment in the Facebook camera app after the acquisition of Instagram. Zuckerberg hems and haws and then says ‘Yeah.’ That's solid evidence the purchase ended head to head competition. #FTCvMeta
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
been in court so no live tweeting for a bit but “mark zuckerberg proposed spinning off instagram and was girding for a day where antitrust came for Facebook” is the story for me
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
loving all these emails but the real thing that comes through is how mark immediately spots any even nascent threat to Facebook and shoots off emails to all his top lieutenants (at all hours of the day or night) and asks “what are we doing about this?” stressful!!!
r/news r on reddit
At US antitrust trial, Meta's Zuckerberg admits he bought Instagram because it was ‘better’ -

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